Maybe the road to the women’s Final Four should part fountains and neon lights, with 16 teams cruising down the Vegas Strip and colliding with one another at a Sweet 16 central location.

That is the vision floated eight years ago and still being pushed by respected analyst Debbie Antonelli, who suggests the NCAA Tournament should move toward valuing competitive balance over regional drawing power and get moving with a #sweet16tovegas movement.

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That is productive and forward, if imperfect or incomplete, thinking. We celebrate the thought of shaking things up. We appreciate the push toward an idea gaining traction and maybe, ultimately, lending more fairness to an unfair tournament setup.

The details can be haggled over, but at least Antonelli has provided a conversational starting point and something to build on during an exploration of a flawed system lacking a clear or easy solution.

“It’s called a regional because you have them in different regions of the country, hence the name ‘regional,’” Auriemma said. “So if we had all 16 teams in one city, all right, you’re planning on what? All 16 teams of those teams, those fans are going to go to that city, and then what? Then go to the Final Four.”

UConn's Gabby Williams and Kia Nurse pose with the NCAA Albany Regional championship trophy last year as coach Geno Auriemma addresses the crowd after a victory over South Carolina. (Courant file photo) (Cloe Poisson /)

OK, yes, it’s a lot to ask of fan bases, traveling to Vegas, traveling home, then making another trip to the Final Four, wherever that might be in a given year. Already, the NCAA has Final Four sites booked through 2024 — Tampa, Fla.; New Orleans, San Antonio, Minneapolis, Dallas and Cleveland. Regional sites are set through 2022.

So Antonelli’s plan, without tweaks, might not be so easy to come together.

Then, let’s tweak it.

Her idea of 16 teams coming together for the Sweet 16 is something to embrace. It doesn’t have to be in Vegas, though part of Antonelli’s vision is apparently tied to willing financial backers in that city.

The event can rotate. The Sweet 16 and Elite Eight can be held in the city of, or close to, the designated Final Four city. Sixteen teams host four-team sub-regionals. Each winner advances to a 16-team celebration of women’s basketball, and one leaves a national champion.

There are complications to that, too — one, for instance, being the question of how long teams can be expected to remain off campus. Still, Auriemma can get on board, in general terms. We all should be willing to.

“That could work,” he said. “You could always move it around and give everybody a chance. … Sixteen teams in one city, and there was no competition — like if you didn’t have it in Los Angeles — I think there’s merit in thinking outside the box and going forward and going, ‘How do we do this? Is there a way we can do this better?’”

UConn coach Geno Auriemma, pictured during the 2017 NCAA Tournament, and his team have earned the right to play locally many times as the tournament's top overall seed. If the Huskies' body of work suggests placement in another bracket, he's happy to board a flight for regional play. (Courant file photo) (Cloe Poisson / Hartford Courant)

Auriemma could have piloted the Huskies’ sled to a national semifinals while wearing a blindfold in recent years. That’s no metaphor to UConn having been markedly better than other teams in its regional brackets since 2008. It’s about roads, literally, and sites and cities and arenas and same old, same old.

The Huskies have punched their Final Four ticket five of the past six seasons in either Albany or Bridgeport, and the quest for a 12th consecutive trip, after two more breezy victories in first- and second-round games in Storrs, is again expected to go through Albany.

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It’s important to note that just about every season, UConn has earned its place as the top overall seed and the right to play as locally as the tournament allows. No question, the Huskies have dominated regular seasons and have been placed accordingly. But the field setup as it follows from there is often unfair to teams seeded just below the top regional seeds.

A current, though hypothetical and now probably moot example: For a while this season, until the Huskies’ victory over South Carolina and a few upset losses by the teams ranked ahead of it in the major national polls, it looked like UConn was lining up as a No. 2 regional seed.

You think for a second the Huskies wouldn’t wind up in Albany, anyway, regardless of the matchups rankings would call for? Maybe the seedings would work out — that UConn as, say, the No. 6 overall team is lined up for a regional final against the No. 3 overall team in the field. Maybe it wouldn’t. Respecting geography is just deemed too important.

Keeping UConn, which draws because its fans make the drive to places like Albany and Bridgeport, close to home is the motivation. The tournament is not seeded properly.

“It’s not like 1 plays 16 regardless [in the Sweet 16], 2 plays 15 regardless,” Auriemma said. “It’s, ‘Where is the best place?’ Well, you’re [messing] up the bracket. … So it’s not a fair tournament then. So if we’re a 2 seed and we don’t belong in Albany, then we shouldn’t go to Albany. But the way the tournament is set up, that’s what happens. It’s not fair. I get it.”

If UConn winds up a 2 seed in Albany, not much changes on that road we talked about. If the bracket holds, the Huskies would face the same opponent in the Elite Eight — only wearing blue instead of white. Same fan base on hand, a virtual home game.

The sport is growing, some level of parity has been attained among the top programs. Brainstorming must correspond with that movement. And Antonelli’s plan holds up … in some fashion.

Let’s get one big super regional women’s basketball party going, like college baseball has in Omaha, Neb., a Sweet 16 venue for something unique to the sport, something lending more legitimacy to the process.

This is about the growth of the game and recognition of its progress. Some teams, in some rounds, are getting matchups they don’t necessarily deserve because they’re being sent to cities and placed in brackets they shouldn’t necessarily be made to play in.

“Let’s say this year we’re 7 [overall],” Auriemma said. “We should go wherever the 7 seed belongs and not for geographical balance. ... If I’m No. 1 seed, we should be playing No. 8 [and] 2 should play 7. If it’s not that and somebody is made to play a team that is unfair, just to put them in the place where they fit better for other reasons than competitive balance, then you’ve got an unfair tournament. Which is what we have.”